Extinction Rebellion on Tom Swarbrick's LBC show
Yesterday, one of the topics on Tom Swarbrick's show on LBC was the Extinction Rebellion protests in London. The Deputy Editor of Spiked spoke about them on the show. Tom also spoke about plastics.
Both Tom and the Spiked correspondent’s view of Extinction Rebellion (ER) seemed to be that
1) ER don’t have policies (other than calling for a climate emergency), and also
2) ER have policies which are too extreme.
Quite obviously, only one of those points can be true - they either have policies or they don’t.
Their complaint really seemed to to be that their policies are not insignificant enough to be palatable. i.e. ER are focussed on changes which are significant enough to have an adequate effect.
For the past 35 years[1], the West has gradually moved from climate change being a fringe concern, to climate change being an acknowledged political concern, to implementing changes small enough to be palatable. We have not yet moved to making changes large enough to be adequate.
And unfortunately, we seem to have run out of road to continue to just tweak around the edges.
We have used up 35 out of the 47 years available to us. (First EPA report on climate change was in 1983. IPCC is now saying we have 12 years left)
In 1983, we could have made smaller changes - a stitch in time saves nine, after all.
But it’s now 2019 - and we are still, as a planet, headed on the path to runaway climate change. If we want to avoid runaway climate change - climate change that keeps happening even if and when we finally try to slam on the brakes - we need to act more, now.
We have 5 to 9 years left before we probably hit 1.5degC of change.
We have 20 to 28 years left before we probably hit 2degC of change.
That’s 5 to 28 years in which to act sufficiently dramatically that we reverse climate change - *and* for the actions to have enough time to take effect.
We need dramatic action, not fiddling at the edges.
It’s a bit like plastics. You said on air that paper straws are making a massive difference on plastics. They are not. They are making a massive difference on plastic straws. But plastic straws are a *tiny* part of the plastics problem. Making a huge difference on a tiny part of the problem does not make a huge difference on the problem. Same goes for disposable plastic shopping bags. It’s a good first baby step. But it doesn’t get us anywhere near the finish line.[2]
We need to take enough steps, and big enough steps, to make a real difference to the problem as a whole. And we need to take them with urgency.
We are just about reaching the stage where the choice is a pretty stark one - prevent Peterborough and Cambridge and Ilford from becoming seaside towns by the time my teenage son gets his telegraph from the Queen[3], or prevent holiday flights to Torremolinos sharpish.
Our key problem is how we bridge the gap between necessary action, and palatable action.
Alternatively, our problem is how to cope once the UK loses Cambridgeshire, Eastern Yorkshire, swathes of Lincolnshire. And Norfolk. And Suffolk. And a lot of London.
1) ER don’t have policies (other than calling for a climate emergency), and also
2) ER have policies which are too extreme.
Quite obviously, only one of those points can be true - they either have policies or they don’t.
Their complaint really seemed to to be that their policies are not insignificant enough to be palatable. i.e. ER are focussed on changes which are significant enough to have an adequate effect.
For the past 35 years[1], the West has gradually moved from climate change being a fringe concern, to climate change being an acknowledged political concern, to implementing changes small enough to be palatable. We have not yet moved to making changes large enough to be adequate.
And unfortunately, we seem to have run out of road to continue to just tweak around the edges.
We have used up 35 out of the 47 years available to us. (First EPA report on climate change was in 1983. IPCC is now saying we have 12 years left)
In 1983, we could have made smaller changes - a stitch in time saves nine, after all.
But it’s now 2019 - and we are still, as a planet, headed on the path to runaway climate change. If we want to avoid runaway climate change - climate change that keeps happening even if and when we finally try to slam on the brakes - we need to act more, now.
We have 5 to 9 years left before we probably hit 1.5degC of change.
We have 20 to 28 years left before we probably hit 2degC of change.
That’s 5 to 28 years in which to act sufficiently dramatically that we reverse climate change - *and* for the actions to have enough time to take effect.
We need dramatic action, not fiddling at the edges.
It’s a bit like plastics. You said on air that paper straws are making a massive difference on plastics. They are not. They are making a massive difference on plastic straws. But plastic straws are a *tiny* part of the plastics problem. Making a huge difference on a tiny part of the problem does not make a huge difference on the problem. Same goes for disposable plastic shopping bags. It’s a good first baby step. But it doesn’t get us anywhere near the finish line.[2]
We need to take enough steps, and big enough steps, to make a real difference to the problem as a whole. And we need to take them with urgency.
We are just about reaching the stage where the choice is a pretty stark one - prevent Peterborough and Cambridge and Ilford from becoming seaside towns by the time my teenage son gets his telegraph from the Queen[3], or prevent holiday flights to Torremolinos sharpish.
Our key problem is how we bridge the gap between necessary action, and palatable action.
Alternatively, our problem is how to cope once the UK loses Cambridgeshire, Eastern Yorkshire, swathes of Lincolnshire. And Norfolk. And Suffolk. And a lot of London.
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A few footnotes: [1] The USA's Environmental Protection Agency brought out its first report on global warming in 1983. You can read it here. It gets the temperature rise by 2019 pretty much spot on. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/9101HEAX.PDF?Dockey=9101HEAX.PDF [2]Plastic packaging has increased 15-fold since the mid-1970s. Plastic straws are only a very tiny part of the plastics problem. https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
A few footnotes: [1] The USA's Environmental Protection Agency brought out its first report on global warming in 1983. You can read it here. It gets the temperature rise by 2019 pretty much spot on. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/9101HEAX.PDF?Dockey=9101HEAX.PDF [2]Plastic packaging has increased 15-fold since the mid-1970s. Plastic straws are only a very tiny part of the plastics problem. https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
[3] Interactive map of sea-level rise: http://flood.firetree.net/
4m to 5m is a credible rise - best estimates are 2.3m of sea-rise for each degree of warming.
Sea-level rise lags behind global warming. Even if greenhouse gas emissions would stop today, sea levels will continue rising for at least a century. (Detailed case in Mengel, M., Nauels, A., Rogelj, J. and Schleussner, C.-F. 2018. Committed sea-level rise under the Paris Agreement and the legacy of delayed mitigation action. Nature Communications 9, Article number 601)
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